11 - The final year

Summary

Director of the Main Geophysical Observatory

In February 1925, A. A. Friedmann was appointed Acting Director of the Main Geophysical Observatory, and in June was confirmed in this post. It was another example of what N. M. Gunter was to mention in his speech in memory of Friedmann: “His practical activity was such that it could not fail to be noticed by everybody, no matter under whom he worked; we know that everywhere Alexander Alexandrovich very quickly rose to the highest administrative positions.” Friedmann himself somewhat regretted the high appreciation of his organizational talent. In his letter to Steklov from Perm (of June 9, 1918) he complained: “My quick grasp of practical matters often renders me ill service, because my colleagues try to give me some responsible practical task; I flatly rejected administrative university posts, as to other kinds of work, I found it embarrassing to reject them at the very beginning …” As in Perm, in Leningrad Friedmann's resistance was broken and he plunged into public and administrative work. According to Gunter, Friedmann resurrected the Leningrad Physico-Mathematical Society: “The society began to work properly when A. A. became its secretary. He drafted the first charter of the society and got it adopted. Extremely busy, to be found only in his observatory study, he found time to attend the sessions of the board, he took upon himself the supervision of abstracts contributed to the Zeitschrift, advocated the publication of a journal during his visits to Moscow and was going to take part in editing it.” In February 1925, Friedmann became the editor of the geophysics section in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. And he never interrupted his research and teaching.